Name: Julia Kotes
Class Year: 2027
Majors: Russian, Linguistics           
 
Internship Organization:  Museum of Russian Culture, San Francsico
Internship Title: Archival Intern
Location: San Francisco, CA
 
What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!  

My tasks are varied from day to day, dependent upon my supervisor (the Museum’s chief archivist)’s needs, but some of the highlights of my internship so far have included working on a collection of photographs endowed to the museum featuring artists of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Chiefly, I was able to identify many of the subjects of the collection’s photos whose identities had previously been unknown to those working with the collection. Another current project which I am especially excited about involves a large collection of Georgian-language books, many of these materials were printed abroad, especially in France, where following the Soviet invasion of Georgia, a “Menshevik” opposition government was run in exile. The work of an archivist is piecing together a narrative from the available puzzle pieces and it has been a fulfilling endeavor to do just that with these Georgian books, not only unsheathing the little-known history of these international publications but also unveiling the personal histories of the individuals who bequeathed these materials to the museum in the first place.

Why did you apply for this internship?  

After dedicating my previous two summers to intensive Russian study, both domestic and abroad, I knew that I wanted to utilize this summer to gain practical experience in a field in which I could utilize the language skills I had worked so hard to develop. I have a long-standing, albeit casual interest in (and love for) museums, even taking a museum studies course a few semesters ago. I thus jumped at the opportunity to synthesize a latent passion of mine with the language that has served as the backbone of my undergraduate career.
 
Was there anything special about how you found this internship?
This internship was offered to me as an “ad-hoc” opportunity coordinated by Russian Department Head, Jose Vergara, and Ryan Gourley, an ethnomusicologist at Berkeley who curated the Museum’s Collection of Recorded Sound.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?
My favorite aspect of this internship has been getting to utilize Russian language everyday with (predominantly) native Russian speakers. 

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect? 

I have gotten a taste of work culture in the Russophone world! We begin work later, stay later, and take “tea” breaks in which we болтаем и отдыхаем (chat and relax) over a shared meal. 

Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you?

Many of the skills I am acquiring over the course of this internship are important in that they involve linguistic skills I would be hard-pressed to acquire solely in a classroom setting. For instance, I am developing a novel, field-specific lexicon in Russian, a skill set I can see lending itself to future museum work. I have also become increasingly comfortable with reading Pre-Reform orthography (fun fact: Russian was written differently prior to 1917), a crucial skill when working with any sort of Pre-Revolutionary materials and of especial interest to me as a linguistics student.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

   3 adjectives: hands-on, ad-hoc, Russophone
   3 nouns: mentorship, language-building, self-discovery 

What is most rewarding about your internship?

A particularly rewarding (and affirming) part of my internship experience thus far has been the tangibility of the contributions I have made to the Museum, whether through additions to the Museum’s digital database with my name listed among the chief contributors or through getting to influence the direction of the Museum-Archive’s collection (i.e. my insistence that we more thoroughly investigate the Georgian-language books rather than donating them based on a perceived lack of connection to the Museum’s mission).

Was this internship what you expected it to be?

In many ways, I had little idea of what to expect from this internship, though a welcome surprise has been the diversity of projects I have been fortunate enough to work on while at the museum, where I initially anticipated being relegated to a single collection/scope of inquiry.